Abstract
After Vietnam’s economic Renovation Policy (Doi moi Policy) effectively started in 1987 and after Vietnam official joined in World Trade Organization (WTO) Vietnam has attracted investors from many countries. Foreign direct investment commitments increased rapidly, but the rate of actually implemented project is rather low and the failure rate is high (see figure 1). Beside the constraints of economic and political, foreign firms are also affected by the cultural differences (Ari, 2003). Therefore, foreign firms have to face with the fundamental issue of human resource management localization. And the success depends on their cognition of Vietnamese culture’s values and characteristics. This study examines Vietnamese culture characteristics. From that, discuss about some management practices which meet Vietnamese’s culture. To be able to provide foreign investors effective practice suggestions, this study through various channels tries to understand the frustrations of foreign investors in Vietnam, discuss with Vietnamese working in foreign firms and Vietnamese managers to examine the possibility of practices localization. This study found that Vietnamese language and village community are the two main factors which made Vietnamese culture some characteristics, shared with John Kleinen (1999)’s study. Moreover, this study provides various business and management practices and strong suggests that when setting direct salary for employees, firms should consider to their employees’ family members; Develop appraisal system to force employee’s performance. Base on this adjust salary and reward employees. Beside that, the findings are relevant and applicable to a range of different country managers and business who invest in Vietnam.